Posted on 11/08/2023 5:42:21 AM PST by Red Badger
An Uber driver covered more than 300 miles a day six days a week in his 2019 Model 3 SR+, making two Supercharging stops per day.
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There's probably no better way to convince people that electric vehicles are as good as internal combustion cars for every use case scenario than having EVs undergo tough trials, and ride-hailing vehicles have it tougher than most. So can a Tesla Model 3 handle that kind of punishment long-term?
Yes and no, according to Dobson, a Model 3 owner who has used his car for Uber duty for almost a year and a half now. YouTube creator Kim Java first featured him in one of her videos in July 2022, when he traded in his Toyota Camry for a slightly used 2019 Tesla Model 3 to use as an Uber car. He spent $53,000 on the Tesla – more than he had ever spent on a car – but he immediately started making savings in fuel and maintenance. The savings added up to $10,000 since he bought it, which is impressive. However, he was unlucky to make the purchase before the EV maker started cutting prices like crazy. Had he waited a few more months, he would have gotten a much better deal on his Model 3 Standard Range Plus.
Alas, that is not his main problem with the Tesla. Dobson covered 120,000 miles since July 2022, which is a lot for a regular user but quite normal for an Uber driver who drives six days a week, more than 300 miles a day, and supercharges twice a day.
The big problem is that the high-voltage battery pack of his Model 3 died recently, and he claims it's because Tesla didn't prepare the Model 3 for the daily grind a ride-sharing vehicle typically has to deal with. The battery died suddenly, Dobson says, and not through progressive degradation.
In a previous video shot when the car had covered 90,000 miles, the battery showed degradation of 11 percent, but after crossing the 110,000-mile mark, he began to see a quick drop in degradation and driving range – down to 170-180 miles at 100 percent SOC.
There may have been something wrong with the battery because a Tesla should lose only about 12 percent of battery capacity after 200,000 miles, according to the EV maker's 2022 Impact Report.
Dobson claims Tesla told him the degradation was attributed to regular wear and tear, but he didn't agree with that, arguing that the degradation was too rapid. It's not clear if the fact that he typically did two Supercharging stops a day, often charging to 90 or 95 percent state of charge, was a factor in the demise of the Model 3's battery.
A typical ride-sharing EV covers more miles in a week and goes through more charging cycles than most EVs for private use cover in months. Some claim that frequent Supercharging, especially when done over a recommended limit, can put significant stress on the battery, though a recent Recurrent study showed little to no difference in battery degradation between frequent fast charging and rare fast charging on Tesla EVs.
Whether or not Supercharging was to blame, one day the Uber driver charged the car overnight at home and had 170 miles of available range, but when he used a Supercharger later in the day, the range didn't go past 35 miles. At that point, he received a notification from Tesla to bring in the car for a check.
He took the car to Tesla Service for an evaluation and was later told that it would cost $9,000 to replace the battery. He accepted that, and he now limits charging to 80 percent at Tesla's recommendation, typically getting 160-170 miles of range from that.
Tesla gave him only a one-year warranty on the new battery, leading Dobson to suspect the battery was not new but refurbished. He also believes that because his car's fully charged battery theoretically offers 207 miles of range at 100 percent SOC, which is 14 percent less than what an identical Tesla Model 3 with a brand-new battery would get.
Dobson goes into great detail in the 34-minute video, so make sure you watch it so that you can get an idea of what exactly happened here. (We would have loved to get Tesla's side of the story about this case, but as you know, the EV maker does not maintain a PR department in the United States.)
I had forgotten that rechargeable batteries have a limited number of recharges.
1) EV's aren't for everyone. There are some use cases where EV's are good, but not everyone. Do your research before getting one (or for that matter before dissing the idea of getting one).
2) Don't get an EV if most of your charging will be DC fast charging (i.e. this Uber driver, or if you live in an apartment or some other situation where you can't do most of your charging at home with a Level 2 charger).
3) Tesla = expensive. Expecting repairs to be cheap with a Tesla would be like a Porsche owner fussing about repair costs.
4) Don't get an EV unless you need two cars anyway (i.e. married) so that you have an ICE car for the trips/situations that an EV is bad in. (In my case that means pickup chores -- thus the EV is our car not our pickup. Plus I'm sure the day will come when we go on a trip in a direction that has few charging options and use the ICE pickup.)
5) Don't get an EV unless you plan to drive it at least 12K miles per year so that the gas and oil change savings are enough to offset new costs the EV brings. If someone like Trump gets back into the WH and our gas prices go down to year 2019 levels, make it about 15K miles per year. (My wife and I drove our 28K miles in the past 12 months.)
6) Before getting an EV research your regular road trips to make sure most of the road trips you go on have good charging options. Assuming the EV will be your new car and, therefore, the car with the most comfortable drive for road trips, make sure it'll be good for most of your road trips. I.e. my wife and I do a lot of trips from Alabama to east Texas and weekend trips around the southeast and every now and then road trip to the northeast -- all have good charging options perhaps because that part of the country is somewhat densely populated.
7) Think twice before getting an EV if you live in a cold weather state. Ostensibly they've improved the EV tech to do "preconditioning" to warm the batteries before leaving the house and before charging at roadside chargers to make them handle cold weather better. I haven't seen the real world specs for that to see if it's a facade or if it's for real (or if it's for real but it drains the battery heavily and makes the overall throughput less efficient).
“But this kind of thing will never be used for those kinds of things.”
Well, the good news is.... unless these vehicles come way down in price and battery replacement costs.... not that many folks will be driving them anyway. I don’t know anyone that can afford to fork over $50k+ for a new car and then another $9k on top of that. These people must be rich.
Pretty good case against the EV, I’d say. I still have my ‘05 car (NOT EV) that I paid about half of that $9000 for in ‘16. It now has about 140,000 on it, runs perfect & is in overall good shape. I did have to put a battery in it awhile back, but it was way under $9000. I would have guessed that EV battery would cost more than that, but didn’t know. It will go a considerable distance on a tank of gas also & would be suitable for long trips if I myself were.
I can’t say I know about the batteries being used in Tesla’s, but UPS batteries can only be charged so many times after being drained before going bad. I’m sure supercharging them reduces the life time significantly.
Yes.
Supposedly the next generation of batteries won’t have that problem.............
Ask him where electricity for EVs comes from.
Anytime I see a bill from the Democrats such as “The Equality Act” or “The Inflation Reduction Act” it makes me think of Rand’s “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog” legislation described in “Atlas Shrugged”.
Profit? Who cares about profit when you’ve got the Feds propping you up?
Perhaps, but that new type of battery will make the EV even more expensive and more to replace.
I wonder what a brand new battery would have cost instead of a refub?
Figure in the time waiting for the battery to recharge and any time in excess of what it takes to fill a gas tank for equivalent range is wasted. Calculate the per hour cost of that time and I’m certain it is in excess of $1000.
I saw a YouTube video about how a California company refurbished a battery. They take apart an old battery and test each cell. They put them into a replacement battery. Now, each cell tested “good”, but they are all as old as the donor battery. A cell has a lifespan. Even if the cell tested good its total life will be limited to whatever the remaining life for a cell is. Thus, the one-year warranty.
Average MPG: 12 city and 21 highway.....
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.......$65k-75k................
Well, well. It looks like EV’s aren’t “making the cut!”
And crazy expensive on gas too if you’re just doing city driving.
“ Well, to be fair...my gas-guzzling F150 dies after approx 550 miles.
But then , i refill the gas tank.”
🤭🤭🤭🤣🤣. You got me. SNORT!!!
I am not a big fan of EV cars for a number of reasons. However in the interests of honesty, the daughter has a Tesla. Had it for almost six years. It’s the SUV and they take it on trips and tow a small RV sometimes. Few problems other than tires need replacement at 20-25k. Loves the various features. Son in law just bought a second one intending to sell the original but sold a Porsche Cayenne instead and now they have two Teslas. They rarely take long car trips beyond 300 miles. The more techno a gadget is the better my son-in-law likes it.
A Tesla dealer will charge abut 16,200 to replace that battery in that model.
They eat tires because of the excess weight.
States are starting to wake up to this fact, as it also eats up asphalt, so roads are worn faster.
They are starting to make tags more costly to EV owners, since they don’t pay road taxes via gasoline and diesel purchases.
Insurance companies are also charging more for EVs because of the prospect of fires and the heavier weight making accidents more costly.
Once China’s EVs hit the American market, the UAW is toast.................................
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